University of Illinois Cancer Center member Shikha Jain, MD, FACP, is among the authors of a study published by the journal JAMA Network Open that surveyed physicians, biomedical scientists and trainees who experienced online social media harassment during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly related to sharing COVID-19 public health information.
Harassment related to comments made about the COVID-19 pandemic was reported by 64% of the 359 survey respondents in the research letter “Physician and Biomedical Scientist Harassment on Social Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
Social Media Harassment
“Social media plays a role in disseminating medical and scientific knowledge to the public; however, high levels of reported harassment may lead more physicians and scientists to limit the way they use social media, thus leaving propagation of misinformation unchecked by those most qualified to combat it,” the authors wrote.
Other study authors are affiliated with the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco.